I have a problem replacing my current NGplaylist view with this SimPlaylist - it simply does not come up as an option when doing this:

"Enable the layout editing mode to manually add SimPlaylist as a UI element. For example, right-click on the current playlist view, choose Replace UI Element, and select SimPlaylist from the list of elements."

That is: the option of replacing my current UI Element never shows itself, no matter what I try - or so it seems. What am I doing wrong?

This means I must add another component ...just for editing standard tags !!?? ...No Thanks.It also means reducing the size of the Playlist Viewer layout to give screen real estate to a component which, to me, is not necessary.

You absolutely don't need another component for editing tags: you have the properties dialog. You asked for a convenient way without opening an additional and floating window window and i made a very good suggestion that leads you to immediate success.

QUOTE (derty2 @ Oct 31 2011, 18:25)

This "in-line editing" feature, in my opinion, is the logical function of a well designed playlist viewer.

No, it isn't. Where f.e. is the sense to inline-edit a columns which is defined by %track artist%? Or %album artist%: how could simplaylist know that you mean <composer> and not <artist>?

QUOTE (derty2 @ Oct 31 2011, 18:25)

as I stated before, if in-line editing and horizontal scrolling are not in any way part of the roadmap for this component then that is that; I don't have to come to this thread ever again. ... By the way, does anybody here know of a playlist viewer for DUI which has these functions? If it is not existant, then I'm stuck with CUI for the rest of my fb2k life.

I don't want a semantic love affair over this; a normal person can see the gist of my arguments.

In-Line editing works beautifully in NG Playlist if one desires to set up the column for it. Why is there NOT ONE Playlist Viewer for the foobar2000 Default User Interface which has basic functions like "In-Line Tag Editing" and "Infinite Horizontal Scrolling". Do the developers of foobar2000 want to encourage usage of DUI or are they totally blase about this? At a glance, Frank Bicking has a chance to create a Playlist Viewer which could be a stepping stone for CUI users to move to DUI. The added inclusion of those two functions would end up benefitting a much broader foobar2000 user base than just "DUI Flag Wavers". There already exists Playlist Viewers for DUI which DO NOT include in-line editing functionality, so why does Frank Bicking have to travel down the same path? How does this encourage diversity and exchange between DUI and CUI users? Things like this polarize the users of fb2k into two camps.

As I stated before, if Frank would kindly share his roadmap for this component with us, then I can push ahead with my own ideas.Thanks for reading.

Frankk, That is a very nice layout by Northpack, but it does not define things, nor give the immediacy of presentation, the way a flat list with scrollbars can .Have a look at this screenshot of my CUI layout [imageshack.us] . Note the virtually infinite horizontal scroll . If the two features I mentioned were part of the configuration options of your component, then users have much more choice in presentational style and it would help build a bridge for CUI users to want to have a go at using DUI, maybe even saying goodbye to CUI forever.

Scrolling to the right removes important information from your view. Horizontal eye movement is required to scan long group headers for a single datum like album title or year. There is no clear visual indication of these four discs belonging to the same box set. Rarely needed technical information clutters the view. Displaying the file path serves no apparent purpose, and so on.

Like q-stankovic, I doubt this represents what a large portion of users is looking for.

Take a look at the grouping options to display things in a much more organized way. For example, common tags could be listed in multiple lines next to the album art. Pinning groups when scrolling would eliminate the need of repeating the album title for every single disc.

Frank, I disagree with nearly every comment you made about my layout.Dealing with albums which belong to box sets has a "choice" dilemma attached to it; is it an item or is it a group. One cannot display perfectly for both (using one playlist viewer).In the case of the items in the example screenshot, I chose them to be separate items; in a massively populated playlist they sort themselves to "Artist - Album". By searching for the "Group/Product ID" I can gather them as a set any time I like.Every column item you see has a solid reason for existing and is necessary, but there is no point in me going into the details.The file path allows me to connect unequivocally with my filesystem.There is not one wasted or redundant element in my layout.

Northpack' example layout using SimPlaylist looked nice, but in reality, in a massive collection of fine grained things, to me, it is useless.

This means I must add another component ...just for editing standard tags !!?? ...No Thanks.It also means reducing the size of the Playlist Viewer layout to give screen real estate to a component which, to me, is not necessary.

Sounds to me like someone better start playing with the foobar SDK and make his own component to suite his needs...rather than bullying the guy that made a component that countless others find extremely useful...I'm a newb, but I'm just sayin'.

As we are becoming offtopic I will not comment the other crap you wrote, only one thing:

QUOTE (derty2 @ Nov 1 2011, 01:02)

I have been forced to click this at least 100,000 times and counting...This is a legacy preferences page. Any changes will most likely take immediate effect regardless of OK/Cancel/Apply commands.

This has nothing to do with CUI in the first place. There are also other components, which are not related to an UI, which also show this message. Further this is not a problem at all, as you can just ignore this message and make your changes without clicking on this message and close the preferences window with the [x] button afterwards. So, it's only a problem between your keyboard and your chair.

If I can depart with one last piece of commentary...For me, it wasn't really about Frank or the features of his component. I tried to replicate the fundamental look of my CUI layout using DUI. While working on this task, I discovered a fact which was fatal to the completion of the task; The non-existence of a Playlist Viewer for DUI wich has Horizontal Scrolling AND In-Line Editing. The reason I came to Frank's thread is because it was the latest Playlist Viewer designed for DUI, and I pondered over the logic of Frank choosing to ignore those two functions I mentioned, considering that all Playlist Viewers that came before him had both those functions missing too. This fact left me with a cynical impression of foobar2000 and its development.

I personally believe that a properly designed Playlist Viewer which is being designed to present masses of fine-grained information requires, AT THE LEAST, those two functions. There is no reason to exclude those options from the design ...apart from ignorance.

I personally believe that a properly designed Playlist Viewer which is being designed to present masses of fine-grained information requires, AT THE LEAST, those two functions. There is no reason to exclude those options from the design ...apart from ignorance.

Dealing with albums which belong to box sets has a "choice" dilemma attached to it; is it an item or is it a group. One cannot display perfectly for both (using one playlist viewer).

That's not a problem with SimPlaylist. I have many boxsets myself and I use another custom tag for those. I just added [%boxsex%] as a second header to my grouping scheme - whenever the tag exists, the title of the boxset is displayed as a header. You could use another tag, BOXSET_DATE if you wanted to have the release date of the boxset too.

QUOTE

Every column item you see has a solid reason for existing and is necessary, but there is no point in me going into the details.

Sorry, but I strongly agree with Frank. I don't see any use in having all those technical details in a playlist view. You can see them any time in the properties view if you like to know them, or in the status bar for the file playing.

I think the main reason for the broad success of Apple products lies in Apples approach of leaving away as many superfluous technical details as possible. I'm certainly not an Apple fanboy, but I have to acknowledge this approach of "less is more".

Why should I care for things like bitdepth or sample rate (which are the same 16/44 for 99.9% of my collection anyway) when my purpose is organizing and listening to music? All they do is to distract from the semantics.

What do nerds and audiophiles have in common? Both neglect the essential in their obsession with technical aspects (I can speak from my own experience because it took me a long time to overcome my own nerdiness in this regard ).

QUOTE

Northpack' example layout using SimPlaylist looked nice, but in reality, in a massive collection of fine grained things, to me, it is useless.

Well, I think I have a large and diverse collection of music myself and SimPlaylist served me very well so far, using my own grouping scheme. The only additional feature I'd really love to see in the future is the possibility to individually assign layouts to playlist, but this probably has to be implemented by foobar rather than by the component...

QUOTE

There is no reason to exclude those options from the design ...apart from ignorance.

The size is determined by the size of the first column wich represents the grouping/albumart.I don't mean it sarcastically: the best you can do is to dowwnload album art or to define a stub image to which the display will fallback if no album art ist found.